California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed AB 147, the Research Animal Adoption Bill, into law. This law requires that healthy dogs and cats that were formerly used as laboratory animals be made available for adoption, rather than be euthanized by the research institutions that housed them. California joins Connecticut, Minnesota, and Nevada as the 4th state to enact such a law to help save the lives of research animals.

The Beagle Freedom Project, an organization dedicated to saving beagles used in lab experiments, was a driving force behind the initiative. Did you know that beagles are the most common dog breed used in lab research? Research institutions obtain beagles from breeders who specifically breed dogs for lab research. Researchers prefer beagles because they find them easy to house and care for in the lab environment.

Universities and other research labs that perform experiments on animals routinely euthanize dogs and cats that are no longer needed for research, even healthy ones. This new law requires labs in California to work with animal welfare organizations to find homes for healthy lab animals. Sadly, many animals used for product testing are harmed and are unable to be saved.

The Beagle Freedom Project works hard to save the lives of these lab animals, and while they welcome potential adopters, they note the challenges of adopting a dog who, in many cases, has gone directly from breeder to lab, without ever having left the confines of a cage, or experienced basic things like the outdoors, walking on a leash, or living in a normal family home.

Interested in learning more about this issue? Check out the Beagle Freedom Project’s website.